Friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber found guilty of lying to authorities

BOSTON (Reuters) - A U.S. jury found a college friend of the accused Boston Marathon bomber guilty on Tuesday of lying to authorities in a terrorism investigation.

Robel Phillipos, 21, was charged with lying about having visited suspected bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's dorm room three days after the attack, which killed three people and injured more than 260.

Phillipos and two friends removed a backpack containing empty fireworks shells from the suspected bomber's room.

Phillipos, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was on trial for two criminal counts of lying to investigators, one for saying he did not remember the visit and one for denying it. He later signed a written confession admitting to it, following an FBI interrogation.